


No Pleasure Cruise

by michellemagly



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Jackanda, One Shot, Pining, casual consumption of alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:34:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michellemagly/pseuds/michellemagly
Summary: Jack is moping about a certain Cerberus agent, but the Normandy crew would never use the word "mope".





	No Pleasure Cruise

Normally, Jack liked to think that she didn’t care about other people. She didn’t do supportive relationships, and in return other people and their baggage never got under her skin. It was a decent exchange, as far as she was concerned. But damn, could Miranda ever get inside her head with her incessant  _ Mirandaness _ , and she wanted to flush the woman out like a toxin.

Hard liquor helped the efforts.

Jack knocked back the shot without even flinching. From across the bar she heard Kasumi laugh. “I’m impressed,” she said.

Jack sneered and wiped her lips. “Damn right you are. Pour me another.” This would be her seventh - no, eighth shot of whisky. Her head felt a little fuzzy, but she managed to speak without a slur, or so she thought. Kasumi’s unreadable expression from under that hood never helped in gauging her reactions.

Wordlessly, Kasumi unscrewed the lid to the bottle and tipped the contents into Jack’s shot glass. Jack watched the amber liquid splash and pool together. She didn’t enjoy the taste so much as the burn and the way it made her whole body tingle with warmth.

Kasumi pushed the drink toward her. “So tell me about you and Miranda,” she said.

Jack snorted and picked up the shot. “Was that your plan all along?” She pointed at Kasumi with the hand holding the shot glass. Liquid sloshed over the side. “Get me hammered enough to spill the beans? Gonna extort me? Jokes on you, jackass. I don’t have any fucking money.”

Kasumi’s lips pulled into a hint of a smirk. “There are more fun ways to make money, Jack. Chalk this one up to curiosity.”

Jack swallowed her latest shot. “So what do you want to know?”

“Well, do you two only hate-fuck? Or is there cuddling?”

Jack snorted at the thought. “You think the Cerberus Princess would lower herself to cuddle with me?” After a moment’s pause she added, “And do I look like a cuddler?”

Kasumi shrugged. “We all have our secrets.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think it’s a secret that the cheerleader fucking despises me. She shows up. We fuck. Then she’s gone. There’s not much else to it than that.”

“And you put up with it?” Kasumi asked.

If Jack could see her face proper, she just knew there would be a judgy stare being thrown her way. “I mean, it’s good fucking. I wouldn’t say yes otherwise.” She thought back on their last encounter. Miranda had arrived in her den when the engineering crew was scheduled for a sleep cycle, like always. She didn’t need any witnesses to her messy little dip into the ship’s underbelly.

She had looked at Jack, asked, “Well?” and only when Jack had given her the smallest nod did she unzip her catsuit and shed it on the floor. Jack had shucked off her pants and underclothes with much less grace. The sex had been short and intense, like it was every time, and Miranda had left as soon as it was over. Jack could still see her raking each perfect strand of hair back into place with her equally perfect fingers. And each time her hair fell in line effortlessly despite Jack’s best efforts to leave her completely disheveled.  _ For once, it would be nice if she had to walk around wearing her shame. _

To that end, Jack never did anything to disguise evidence of their fucking. Primarily, she didn’t give two shits over what the crew thought. But it also bugged the hell out of Miranda.

Another question from Kasumi pulled her back to the present, “But do you ever want more?”

Jack immediately dismissed the implications of the question with a wave of her hand. “Look, not all of need some storybook white knight like your precious Keiji.” She was hoping to see Kasumi go cry or something more dramatic, but she just stood there with that creepy smile on her face.

“I agree, Jack.” Kasumi poured herself a glass of whisky and took a small sip. “It was just a question.”

“Yeah, well I’m not here to be psychoanalyzed.” Jack flicked her glass across the counter and folded her arms. She rested her head on a forearm. She didn’t want to watch Kasumi watch her anymore. With a sigh, she turned her head to the side and glanced out the observation window. Stars lingered like pinpricks in a tapestry. “And besides, Miranda  _ doesn’t do relationships _ ,” she said, quoting the same excuse Miranda had dropped after their second time fucking. She had said it without any prompt from Jack, as if she was scared Jack was going to ask her out to dinner on the presidium next. She had replied with, “I didn’t ask for one, did I? Fucking narcissist.” Miranda had promptly stormed off after.

Next to her, she heard the clink of ice being dropped into a glass. She glanced over at Kasumi to watch her pour another drink. “It sounds to me like there might be trouble in paradise.”

“This ain’t paradise.” Jack kept back a derisive comment about it being a living hell. It wasn’t, and that was the shitty part about all of it. If Miranda was just a piece of ass Jack was using in return, she wouldn’t need to mope in the observation deck with eight - no, nine shots of cheap liquor making her head swim.

But Miranda was under Jack’s skin, and that was the problem.


End file.
